Skype Scandal

Hackers to be punished

Says Hasanul Haq Inu

Staff Correspondent

The government will take action against persons involved in hacking the Skype conversations of the former International Crimes Tribunal-1 chairman as leaking someone's personal conversation is a punishable offence, said Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu yesterday.

“Investigation is going on to identify the persons,” he said at a press briefing organised at the Secretariat to “dispel confusion and controversy created” by opposition parties following the publication of Justice Md Nizamul Huq's Skype conversation.

Justice Huq resigned from the chairman post of ICT-1 on December 11 following an Amar Desh report on his Skype conversations with Dr Ahmed Ziauddin, an expatriate Bangladeshi legal expert.

The daily newspaper said it had collected the records of the conversation from a source abroad. The government appointed another justice to the post on December 12.

Inu said if the post of chairman or any member of ICT fell vacant, there was no bar in continuing the trial by reconstituting the Tribunal, just as in the code of criminal procedure.

BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami, with a number of leaders facing war crimes trial, had accused the government of interfering with the trial and victimising political opponents in the name of the trial and demanded a retrial and Justice Huq's resignation.

Inu claimed that the government “did not have any headache” over the hacking and Skype conversation's publication. “The government rather is so strong that it is determined to bring every persons involved in war crimes to book.”

He said none was being tried based on their political affiliation and war criminals, whether belonging to Awami League, JSD, BNP or Jamaat, would be tried.